Most compilations are limited to the library of recordings owned by a single record company, but the Smithsonian Institution, for its American Songbook Series, has made licensing agreements with several labels such that, for example, the tracks for the volume on Frank Loesser come from Sony (that is, Vocalion and Columbia Records), MCA (that is, Decca Records), Capitol, and PolyGram (that is, MGM and Mercury Records). This enables the producers to survey Loesser's songwriting career in rough chronological order, with the 22 ...
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Most compilations are limited to the library of recordings owned by a single record company, but the Smithsonian Institution, for its American Songbook Series, has made licensing agreements with several labels such that, for example, the tracks for the volume on Frank Loesser come from Sony (that is, Vocalion and Columbia Records), MCA (that is, Decca Records), Capitol, and PolyGram (that is, MGM and Mercury Records). This enables the producers to survey Loesser's songwriting career in rough chronological order, with the 22 tracks beginning in 1938 at his lyrical setting to Hoagy Carmichael's music for "Two Sleepy People," sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938, and ending with the actual soundtrack recording of "I Believe in You" sung by Robert Morse in the movie version of the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1967 (courtesy of MGM/UA). As this suggests, Loesser started out as a lyricist-for-hire in Hollywood in the '30s; by the '40s, he was writing his own music, and toward the end of that decade, he turned to the Broadway stage; and in the '50s and '60s, he wrote the songs for such shows as Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed . Along the way, many of his songs became pop hits. This album is not aiming to be a "greatest-hits" collection. Rather, it attempts to pick from Loesser's better songs that were also popular, as sung by a range of accomplished pop and jazz singers, with occasional forays into cast and soundtrack recordings. It's not hard to cite Loesser evergreens that are missing (e.g., "A Bushel and a Peck," "I Don't Want to Walk Without You," "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition"). But most of Loesser's best-loved copyrights are here, and they make a case for him as a songwriter with a theatrical flare, even before he got to Broadway, notably in such intimate and conversational duets as "Two Sleepy People" and the Oscar-winning "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Curiously, despite the cooperation from the major labels, the sound quality drops now and then. Dick Haymes' a cappella rendition of "In My Arms" for Decca in 1943 and Dinah Shore's of "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" for Columbia in 1947 both sound like they were mastered off of scratchy 78s. But there is bound to be some variation in sound on an album covering nearly 30 years of recordings. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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